


Case #0161012 - Bad Soil

by bluebismuth



Series: TMA Fic (OC-related) [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Animal Death, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Kidnapping, Original Character(s), Original Non-Binary Character - Freeform, Uncanny Valley, mentions of transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-11
Updated: 2020-02-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:39:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22657150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebismuth/pseuds/bluebismuth
Summary: Statement of Avery Linwood, a finance worker in the Magnus Institute, regarding their time living in the rural town of Crestfallen, between the spring of 2014 and the summer of 2016. Statement taken direct from subject, December 10th, 2016.
Series: TMA Fic (OC-related) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1629961
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	Case #0161012 - Bad Soil

**Author's Note:**

> this is my first real tma fic, so i hope you all enjoy! my future fics won't be written statement-style unless they're actual statements, so if you guys want to see more of my tma stuff (and avery in particular), look forward to a more traditional style
> 
> UPDATE: i'm planning on retconning this with an updated statement--the meat of it will largely be the same, but dates and things like that will be changed around. i won't be deleting this fic when i upload it, but there will be a link in this section to the new one when i do. just keep in mind that it might be a while, since i'm currently busy with jonelias week and i'm heading back to college soon. thanks for understanding!

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Avery

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You’re _sure_ this isn’t too much of an inconvenience? I-I don’t have to talk about it. You probably still have more statements to get through.

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Archivist

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If you ask me that one more time, I won’t take statements from you ever again.

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Avery

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Christ, alright, I’ll stop. At least I won’t get in trouble, ‘cause I got everything assigned to me done already…

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Archivist

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Aren’t you fast.

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Avery

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It’s a blessing and a curse. Curse in that I get chewed out if I’m caught fucking around on the office computer.

Sorry, sorry, getting off topic. I’ll make the statement now.

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Archivist

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Statement of Avery Linwood, a finance worker in the Magnus Institute, regarding their time living in the rural town of Crestfallen, between the spring of 2014 and the summer of 2016. Statement taken direct from subject, December 10th, 2016. Statement begins.

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Avery

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Man, okay. So, as you can probably tell, I’m not from England. I was born and raised in America, Wisconsin to be specific. I graduated college in 2009 because I had to get 150 credits to qualify for CPA exams–although I guess in the end it did jack shit, ‘cause I only ended up staying in the U.S. for five years. 

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Archivist

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Sorry, could you clarify what a CPA is?

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Avery

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Oh! I-it stands for Certified Public Accountant. It basically means that I can provide accounting services to the public alongside working for companies. And since I’m here now instead of my home state, I have to do continuing education if I wanna keep that license active. I guess it makes sense, but it’s still extra work, y’know?

Sorry, getting off topic again. I feel like that’s gonna be a theme for this statement.

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Archivist

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I’ve had my fair share of ramblers. I’m guilty of it too.

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Avery

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I mean, still. Anyway, that shit kinda drove me into the ground. I never managed to get enough money to rent a decent office space so I could be independent, and the closest I ever got to that was working in assurance services. I would’ve stayed in forensic accounting, but every office I was in had a terrible culture. One of my ex-bosses told me that I, quote unquote, “had too big of a rack” to be anything but a girl. So…yeah.

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Archivist

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And I assume this is why you left?

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Avery

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Pretty much. I wasn’t too keen on moving anywhere inside the U.S., everywhere was either too bigoted or too expensive or too crowded…you get the picture. I guess I just wanted something different, something where I didn’t need to sit in an office all day and handle people’s taxes or whatever. I’ve always loved those kinda video games where you move to some old farmhouse and clean it up, start taking care of crops and livestock, making friends with the townspeople…it was a form of escapism I could never really afford–honestly, unless you’re a big dairy farmer, you’re not gonna get anywhere stable in Wisconsin. 

I don’t know how I found my way to Crestfallen. I think I saw a post on Tumblr about how, if you promise to restore an ancient castle–the ones that’re all over Europe–you can live in it for free, and there was a link to some website where you could register to do that. I guess it held more than castles, though, ‘cause I saw a section for old farmhouses. The one in Crestfallen was the cheapest, and apparently I would even get a financial reward from the mayor if I helped out enough. It was a moment of weakness, I guess.

I don’t tell my parents a whole lot of stuff anymore unless they ask, but I felt the need to tell them I was moving to a different country. They must’ve seen it as odd, but they knew I wasn’t doing too well in my…current line of work. They gave me their well wishes and I left for England.

I guess the first thing that tipped me off was getting there. I didn’t think anything of it, but when I told the bus driver–coach driver for you guys–where I was going, he seemed…surprised. He didn’t know the place at first, that it wasn’t even on his map. I pointed it out on my phone, and he said that the nearest stop was Billingham in County Durham. I said that was fine, that I could probably catch a taxi the rest of the way. I don’t know if he believed me, but either way, he accepted my ticket and I boarded. There wasn’t anything unusual about the ride up, and at the time, I just guessed he didn’t know because the town was so small.

When I finally arrived in Billingham, I managed to flag a taxi down and asked the driver to go to Crestfallen. He also seemed surprised, but it must’ve been for completely different reasons. Whatever they were, he shoved it down and told me it was going to be a fairly expensive taxi ride. That was fine by me, I had already converted all of my money to pounds anyway. So I loaded my luggage and got in the back.

Thankfully, he kept silent most of the way through. He told me when we were about five minutes away from the stop, and followed it up by telling me that if I wanted to turn back now, he wouldn’t charge me anything. 

I realized what he meant: I had been paying attention to my book and not to the town itself, which was covered in a heavy fog. I hadn’t noticed any fog when I got to Billingham; the skies were clear all day. Maybe it was just foggy west of the bus route and Billingham–I wanted to get away from my old life so desperately that I was denying any possibility that my new life would be worse.

I shook my head and said that I was staying. The taxi driver laughed, a short, almost bitter laugh. Told me that I was gonna die in Crestfallen one way or another before he dropped me off. I paid him and took my luggage, still questioning what exactly he meant.

The odd thing was that, after I stepped off, the fog had lifted. I mean, the sky was still overcast, but I could see clearly. I was in this…little clearing, with a path that presumably led to the town, and another one apparently leading to the farm. A man was waiting in the clearing, and he approached me. Said he was the mayor, and that he wanted to show me to the farm. 

I had already expected the farm to be a mess, honestly. I saw the pictures. There were scattered branches and stones throughout the farmland, wild grass growing everywhere…if there was even a previous owner, they must’ve left a long time ago. I wanted to ask the mayor, but he just ignored me. At the time, I thought he was just busy and that he had better things to do. He gave me a random bag of seeds and told me my tools were in the farmhouse. And then he just left.

I wish I could tell you more, but I just can’t remember a good chunk of my time there. My therapist is pretty sure it’s a symptom of my PTSD, which…if there’s even more traumatic memories my brain has blocked out, that’s scarier than anything I can remember.

Everything was just so uncanny. Most of the people always moved around like robots, their eyes glazed over, until I talked to them. And then they were all too perky. Even the people I were told were grumps acted like it. There were things that were superficially different about them, but they all acted so similarly, it felt like some sort of hive mind. I don’t know if that’s what was going on, and honestly, I don’t want to find out.

I say most of the people, because there were two I felt like I could trust. There was a huge lake on the outskirts of the town, and these two people lived on the beach. One of them lived in a small cabin, her name’s Odelia Stevens. She’s a writer, and she had gotten herself in the unfortunate situation where she couldn’t afford to move out, once she realized what was going on with the town. The second was an old fisherman living by the docks, his name was Langdon Averill. I’ll…get to why I say “is” for Odelia and “was” for Langdon later.

I think meeting them was the thing that kept me from falling into the town’s clutches. They were considered outcasts, and the town seemed to pretend like they didn’t exist. I never saw any of them go to the beach, and when one of them tried to talk to me after I left, they would tell me I just appeared out of nowhere.

I didn’t end up farming much. I would buy from the general store, at first, but when I harvested the crops, they were…god, I can’t think of the words. They were mangled and sickly, even though I knew the soil at least looked good. The seeds the mayor gave me, I think they were supposed to be parsnips, but the leaves were so shriveled, and the parsnips themselves were hard and spotted, and they were so small. When the mayor came to my farm to gather the harvest, I didn’t know whether or not to give…any of what I’d grown to him. But he saw them and he was overjoyed. He took one of those parsnips and bit right into it, dirt and spots and all. And he loved it! The only things that really prospered was food that I foraged from a nearby forest, and that became pretty much my entire diet. I took a sample of the soil from the farm; I have it with me if you want to keep it for testing or something.

Odelia and Langdon told me a lot about the other townsfolk, mostly so I wouldn’t outwardly freak out. I learned that they hate that the hard way–I once saw a child, couldn’t have been more than ten years old, shove a live robin down his throat and swallow it. I screamed, and the child’s mother descended on me, scratching me with her nails. Even though they were short, they were almost deadly sharp. I still have the scars on my cheek. She was screaming at me, over and over, screaming that he was just having a snack. It must’ve drawn the attention of the other townsfolk, because I could hear more voices yelling at me, telling me that I would be cooked in “his pot,” whatever that meant. Suddenly, the clock in the center of town rang and, like a reset button, they all stopped and went back to their usual activities. Thankfully, I had already met the two at the beach, and Langdon patched me up in his house.

I learned that they ate live birds a lot. They really seemed to like raw meat, flies or rotting be damned. I liked my meat back then, still do, but at least I cook it first. They would eat raw chicken and vomit in the streets afterwards. I never saw anyone die, funnily enough. 

They had celebrations every so often. I hadn’t properly learned from Odelia and Langdon yet, so I went to the first one in the spring. I think it was something for Easter, but all they did was crack a bunch of eggs in this huge pot and take turns drinking spoonfuls from it. When I declined, I could feel that they wanted to attack me, but something prevented them from ending the celebration in bloodshed. 

After that first spring, I spent a lot of my time at the beach and in the forest. The forest wasn’t completely free of the townsfolk, as one of them ran a ranch near the edge of that, but I needed it for food. Eventually, Langdon taught me how to fish–I couldn’t exactly subsist on wild leeks and berries forever. It was a nice way to pass the time.

By that first winter, though, things started to change. So long as snow covered the ground, the townsfolk would come in the night and write things in it. Sometimes I wouldn’t see them if the snow covered it up, but otherwise…it was always things about how I had betrayed their father, more references to his pot, that I would melt and cook while they feasted on my bones with said father. I wish I could remember more, Jon, I’m sorry.

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Archivist

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Do you remember anything else?

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Avery

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Well…sometime around the first fall, Odelia taught me how to make seeds out of the food and flowers I foraged. That was how I knew it wasn’t the soil that made the crops suffer, the seeds that I had made turned out fine–sometimes they were even better than what I had foraged. I ended up farming more for myself over anything, even though one of the points on that ad was that I had to be generous and donate some of my crops to the townspeople. I doubted it would make them happy, though. And I don’t really like hurting or killing people unless they’re actively attacking me or other innocent people; if my crops were going to poison the town, I didn’t want to risk anything. Chances are it would’ve just made them madder.

I tried to raise some chickens, though. Despite how much I didn’t want to interact with either of these people, I asked the carpenter to make a coop, and I got some chickens from the man running the ranch. By all accounts, they acted like normal chickens, and I tried to feed them good hay by harvesting the grass, but their eggs were still terrible: gray yolks, incredibly thin whites…I love scrambled eggs, but I could never use those. I eventually sold the chickens back to the ranch and had the coop taken down after a few months in the summer. I didn’t even want to try raising cows.

I wanted to leave so badly by the time that second winter rolled around. While Odelia and Langdon would often visit me and we would spend time on my farm or in the forest, by that time there was some odd force preventing them from leaving the beach. I witnessed it myself; anytime they would approach that border of trees separating the beach from the rest of the town, it was like they got…stuck. I don’t know if you play video games, but you know when you reach the border of the game map, and you just can’t go any further despite there not being anything physical stopping you? It looked like that. I could come and go as I pleased, but it was like…like the townspeople had rejected their existence so hard they couldn’t even penetrate the town they had constructed so carefully.

I think the final straw for the townspeople was late spring, the last year I was there. They had this sort of dance deep in the thick of the forest, apparently only accessible when the dance was going on. One of the men around my age there was the town doctor–which I doubt he was actually licensed to practice medicine, since I don’t even think he was thirty at the time–and he asked me to go to the dance. I’d never been asked before, in Crestfallen or in general, but I really didn’t want to go. I had no idea what kind of fucked up shit would happen there, and I didn’t want to find out. So I said no.

That night, just before I was about to go to bed, my door was broken down. I don’t remember how many people were there, but it was definitely the doctor and at least four other people. They descended on me like vultures, only instead of eating me they were savagely beating and kicking me. I was crying, and…sorry, hold on a second.

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Archivist

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Take your time.

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Avery

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[They nod, silently wiping tears away from their face]

Sorry, I…I have a bad habit of going nonverbal when I start crying. That, and I sound incomprehensible when I try to talk, and that’s especially bad considering you’re recording this. Anyway, I think one of them brought a bat down on my head, and I was knocked unconscious. I woke up the next morning in this weird white dress and a flower crown on my head. I could feel thorns on the stems threatening to pierce my already sensitive head. As my vision came into focus, I could see that my hands and feet were bound with rope. Actually, I wasn’t wearing anything but that dress, but when I tried to ask where my clothes had gone, I…I couldn’t make words with my mouth. Just a gentle sigh. It was a moment later that I saw the doctor holding my clothes, all neatly folded, approaching a blazing bonfire. Before I could even try to yell out, he threw them into the flames and turned towards me, watching me with cold infatuation as my clothes burned away.

Soon enough, the mayor approached me and grabbed my wrists, pulling me to the center of what looked to be the actual dancing part of the area. It was from here that I could see the whole field: the bonfire in the middle, separating what looked to be a buffet from the dancing. Various townspeople were milling around the buffet or looking at the bonfire, but when the mayor whistled, everyone turned to face me instantly.

They must’ve all known what would happen, because without a word or even a gesture from the mayor, the doctor stepped forward and grabbed my hands in his own. I tried to look at the ground, but the mayor held a hand under my chin so I would look my apparent dance partner in the eyes. 

I hated every second of it. I was basically just getting tossed around, since I couldn’t move my feet. I could hear the townspeople chanting and playing instruments, but it wasn’t anything I could decipher. That or I just can’t remember, I wouldn’t be surprised at this point. Slowly, more people joined in on the dance, although from the snippets I could see, their dance was totally different than whatever the doctor was doing to me.

It felt like hours, but the sun’s position hadn’t even moved in the sky when the dance was done and I was released. I didn’t get much time to relish it, though, because I was knocked unconscious again. When I woke up, it was night, and I was lying naked on top of my bed.

I knew at that point that I had to get out of there. But I didn’t want Odelia and Langdon to be trapped either. I needed to do something. God, I can’t believe I forgot to mention this, but the entire time I was there, I could never get a signal on my phone. And it wasn’t like I had run out of data or anything, I was on a by-the-gig plan at the time. At least I wasn’t wasting my money, but it still frustrated me. Most of my days after that dance were spent walking all around the town limits, trying in vain to even get one bar. I’d downloaded one of those rideshare apps forever ago, but I never used it, and I figured now would be the best time to see if anyone could show up. I didn’t have much faith, considering my previous experiences getting to Crestfallen, but dammit, I had to try. I did _not_ want to die in this place, and I didn’t want Odelia or Langdon to either.

I know you’re probably wondering why I didn’t just walk the road back to where I came, but to be honest, I didn’t want the townspeople following me. None of them had cars, as far as I knew, maybe a motorcycle owned by one person, but I still feared that they could track us down anyway. Plus, I didn’t want to get turned around and end back up in Crestfallen again. So, I figured calling someone over would be the best solution. I really didn’t want to rope anyone else into this mess, but it had the highest chance of succeeding in my eyes. And well, I’m here right now.

I finally got two bars on May 31st. See, part of Crestfallen is on a huge hill, and on the peak of that there’s a train that comes through–no stops, unfortunately, and I never heard or saw one go by while I was living there. Either way, it was there that I finally found a signal. So, I told my plan to Odelia and Langdon: that as soon as I found a way to get them out of the beach and onto the single road that went out of Crestfallen, we were leaving. Langdon seemed more hopeless than Odelia, but they both eventually agreed. 

As it turned out, Odelia was on her high school’s swim team, and she had kept that up. She found that, so long as she swam to where the river flowing through Crestfallen emptied into the lake and kept her body underwater the entire time, she could escape into the rest of the town. With the added bonus of this river emptying out in the forest, she and Langdon could have some secrecy coming up. Meanwhile, I could take their luggage beforehand and keep it at my house until they were ready to go.

They were ready June 7th. The three of us stood at the top of the hill, Odelia and Langdon soaked, while I got someone to pick us up. Once the ride was approved, we raced back down to my house to get our luggage and wait for our driver. Unfortunately, the rest of the town seemed to have picked up on our plan.

Five minutes before our driver got there, we could see a mob approaching us, and they had _weapons._ Crude ones, but I could see kitchen knives glinting in people’s hands, sharpened sticks and stones and bats. They didn’t want to just beat us up this time; they were either going to indoctrinate us or kill us.

Despite his age, Langdon was surprisingly good at defending us against the mob. While we were able to avoid things being thrown at us, and at a couple points we threw them back to keep individual members from attacking us, Langdon was actively keeping them away with his suitcase. Two minutes before our driver got here, he was able to wrestle a butcher’s knife from a woman’s hand–the same woman that clawed my face so long ago. It felt like slow motion, watching him throw the knife right in the center of the woman’s forehead.

As she collapsed into a heap, the mob paused. They looked at the dead woman, and their faces contorted into anger. One of them cried out, and the mob descended on him just as the driver pulled up. Langdon screamed at us to save ourselves, and Odelia pulled me into the car. As she told the driver to go as fast as she could, I watched helplessly as the mob tore chunks from Langdon, and he screamed in pain as they ate his flesh.

When the driver dropped us off at the bus station, I gave her a five star rating and a tip that basically doubled the cost of the ride. She didn’t sign up to see a man be cannibalized, so it was the least I could do for potentially traumatizing her.

As we waited, I asked Odelia if Langdon sacrificing himself was something he planned. She shook her head, but she did remember hearing him say that he would rather he die on this mission over either of us, his rationale being that he was just an old fisherman, that we had more potential than he did out in the rest of England. I don’t know if he was right, but I can’t exactly change the past.

When the bus drove up, we boarded. I ended up sleeping most of the way down, which gave Odelia the chance to rest her head on my shoulder. Even though it was on a bus, it was the most comfortable I slept in the longest time. She must’ve had family or something in Liverpool, since that was where she requested to be dropped off. At first, I didn’t really know where I wanted to go. I didn’t know what to do with myself anymore; all of my plans for the future had been dashed by Crestfallen. I ended up telling the bus driver to bring me to Greenwich, since it seemed far enough away from the center of London that I wouldn’t be overwhelmed. I applied for temporary housing there while I looked around for jobs to tide me over. It took about a month for me to get my own place, and as you probably know, I got a job here in August.

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Archivist

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That’s…certainly a lot. Do you have any way of contacting Miss Stevens to perhaps get her perspective on Crestfallen?

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Avery

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I have her number, yeah. Though I’m not sure how willing she’d be to talk to you about it, considering whenever I’ve tried to bring up her time in Crestfallen, she doesn’t want to talk about it.

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Archivist

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Well, I suppose that’s understandable. As much as I would want to send someone up there to investigate, it would likely take a day at least, and if your claims are true, it would be very dangerous for–

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Avery

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What, you don’t believe me?

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Archivist

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You said yourself that you don’t remember a whole lot. But considering some of the…more horrific things you’ve told me about Crestfallen, I don’t want to think about what’s been blocked from your memory due to trauma. 

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Avery

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I…I guess. I wouldn’t want anyone going out there either. Not without a weapon, and I doubt you can have those on public transportation.

Sorry. It’s just…wanting to tell someone about this was part of the reason why I applied to work at the Institute. Not all of it, but…I was kind of worried you wouldn’t believe me if I was some stranger. Although, I guess now’s not much better.

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Archivist

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[Sighs] Avery, I know I might act like I do, but I _don’t_ hate you. I’m not around you enough to hate you.

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Avery

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I have a feeling you will if you get to know me better. It happens a lot. [Sighs, getting up from chair] Well, if that’s all you need from me, I should go.

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Archivist

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For now, yes. I’ll reach out if I need additional information.

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Avery

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Cool. 

[Footsteps, door opens then closes]

[CLICK]

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Archivist

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[CLICK]

Despite the…awkward ending to that statement, Avery has been surprisingly cooperative in regards to follow-up questions. They asked Odelia Stevens if she could come in and give a statement, but apparently her work schedule would make that difficult. However, Avery has arranged a video call with her and myself, so maybe she’ll be able to give us some more insight. In fact, Avery has actually asked me if I would be willing to let them help out once they're done with their work in the financial department. Apparently they have _some_ experience, since they worked at their university's archives. I'm not sure I understand _why_ they would want to be here, considering all that's happened, but...I guess it wouldn't hurt to have more help around here.

As it turns out, Crestfallen is a registered town in County Durham, despite there being very little information about…anything involving it, really. I don’t know how I could convince anyone to go there, even if they don’t know about it. I don’t think I could live with myself if I did that.

I really don’t know all that much about Avery, now that I think about it. As much as I don’t want to trust them, I’ve been trying to let my paranoia go. It’s strange, you’d think knowing them less would give me more reason to be paranoid about their intentions, but…quite the opposite, really. I don’t know what motivation they’d have for faking something on this scale, especially when their job is so removed from the more paranormal aspects of working here.

I just don’t know. And I don’t know if that’s a sign I should get to know them better, or keep them at arms’ length.

Recording ends.

[CLICK]

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! if you wanna see more tma stuff from me, particularly with my oc, please let me know!


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